The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-04-27

report of the Committee on the Atlantic
and Gulf Canal and Okeechobee Land
Co., to which the Times Union referred
in yesterdays issue. As we have stated
before in these columns, it is the report
complete, Of Messrs. J. j. Daniel, w. III.
Davidson and John Bradford, made last
January, upon the extent to which the
drainage had actually been carried in
the OkeechObee district, showing that
but 80, 900 acres have actually been rem
dered more or less fit for cultivation.
Yet ION August Is, 1884, II. s. Duval,
after an investigation made in company
with j. NJ. Kreamer, Chief Engineer of
the Drainage Company" to quote our
own editorial of March 4, last, ''re-
ported list of townships permanently
reclaimed by the operations Of the
Drainage Company and the total sum-
med up 2, 1856 ,412.a7 acres" 1t was after
this report that the committee named,
appointed by Gov. Perry on November
H.: 1885, at the request of the Legisla-
ture, report that it was satisfied that,
whether subject to overflow or not, but
a small proportion of the lands conveyed
to the Drainage Company as its share of
the reclaimed lands, had been reclaimed
by the company. The committee, which
visited the district to be reclaimed at all
seasons Of the year, showed by careful
statements that comparatively little land
has been reclaimed and that the drainage
works are wholly inadequate to the end
to be gained.
Again we repeat the words of the dedi-
cation Of the pamphlet that the people
have a right to demand of the Demo
cratic party, which is responsible for our
State administration since 1880, that JUS
tice be done, fraud punished and the in
terests of the public protected by the en-
forcement Of official honesty.
Has it not? To which of these PROPOSE
tiOns dares tine Times Union to object ?
Does it desire that justice shall not be
done, that fraud shall not be punished
and the interests Of the public shall not
be protected? 1t would have its read
ers infer, by its manner of
republishing that dedication, that
there is something infamous in
requiring that justice be done and fraud
punished; that there is something dis
honorable in protecting the interests of
the public.
As for the report itself, that will stand
on its merits and on the character of the
gentlemen who made it. The Times
Union, we assert with confidence, will
not attempt to prove that anything in
that report is false. The facts given in
the editorial bound up with it in the
pamphlet can not be gainsaid. The edi-
tOrial of the Times Union was intended
solely for the perusal of such as have not
read the report referred to.
After careful perusal of the
are confident that some one
has Numbered. Evidently the writer
thereof was 50 COMPOUNDED by the light
Of truth let in upon him by perusal of
the pamphlet that, like a wounded
snake, he turned and bit himself. He is
gnawing a file when he attacks that
pamphlet. THE PALATKA NEWS is more
proud of the publication than ever and
would be pleased to see it even more
widely read than it is, and it has had a
large number of readers, including the
editor of the Times Union.
II that report and the facts presented
in the editorial or the propositions in
the dedication hurt any friend of the
Times Union we are sOrry-for that
friend. We do not desire to Join the
Times Union in running its friends. MOI
are we anxious to take too active a part
in furnishing wrong-doers it is enough
to expose them. We would desire that
there were no wrong doing in this world
that every man might consult his neigh
boris good before his own and never
claim more than he WAS justly entitled
to. We should like to have the Times
Union study our ways carefully, that il
might be led to aid us to make this
breathing world of ours such a sphere of
harmony. To be sure it would be an
uninteresting world, a dull, fat, insipid
world to those who never studied JUS
tice nor hated fraud, and, too, in such a
world the circulation of the Times Union
would fall off amazingly, but it would
be a world where such report as that
of Messrs. Daniel, Davidson and Brad
ford would be unnecessary.